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Monday, May 10, 2010

Control

My dad used to play medium pitch over hand softball. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it since, but it was a good idea: you pitch overhand but you can't pitch too fast. So instead of altering your swing radically for those moonball slo-pitches, you are kind of taking batting practice.

If this means nothing to you, it's ok. It meant not much to me when I was in second grade.

But my dad was good at the sport. He could pitch overhand - his high school career included several no-no's and even a perfect game. He could throw four pitches. And, he could hit. Now that I'm bigger and older, I realize that his ability to hit was pretty profound, all desire and physics. But he could rip the ball.

By second grade, Dad had already spent a good amount of time talking to me about the correct transfer of weight synched with the swing of the bat. Eyes on ball, wrists back. Efficient and powerful. Follow through.

So, I'd go to Dad's games and I was tasked with watching his swing. After the game, Dad would get in the VW Bug and ask me about each at bat, about what I saw. It was the gateway into so many aspects of what I was taught, who Dad is, and who he wanted me to be. At second grade, he wanted me to have excellent powers of observation and critical thinking, to offer my opinion to a superior unafraid. To assess an action independent of my overwhelming emotion.

I remember telling him that I thought he was moving in the box. Rocking back, then forward. That his eyes had left the ball and looked to where he wanted to hit. Looking back, it's occurring to me as I write this that one of Dad's biggest obstacles was when what he wanted to do got in the way of what he was doing.

So it's 35 years later and I'm breaking down what was and is. Critical thinking has allowed me to get a degree and success in a variety of fields. I've gotten pretty good at it. I realize I could have worked a lot less hard at work and still have my job. That I wish I would have made my older kids work harder at what they loved. That I should never have bought that conversion van. It's a long list.

I just got back from visiting my little brother. When I asked him about his life, he gave me a shockingly uncritical response. If you had xxxx and then xxxx happened, what would you have done? I asked. His response: that didn't happen. But, I offered, if you had xxxx in the past, then of course you'd be in a different spot. True, he responded, but xxxx didn't happen.

Everything is as it should be. God has guided events so that where things are today is where He wants them to be. No amount of critical thinking of the past or future is going to improve, add, or subtract from where we are now.

This is not how it should be
This is not how it could be
This is how it is
Our God is in control

This is not how it will be
When we finally will see
We’ll see with our own eyes
He was always in control

And we’ll sing
Holy Holy Holy is in our God
And we will finally really understand what it means
So we’ll sing
Holy Holy Holy is in our God
While we’re waiting for that day

This is not where we planned to be
When we started this journey
This is where we are
And Our God is in control

Though this first taste is bitter
There will be sweetness forever
When we finally taste and see
That Our God is in control

And we’ll sing
Holy Holy Holy is in our God
And we will finally really understand what it means
So we’ll sing
Holy Holy Holy is in our God
While we’re waiting for that day
We’re waiting for that day
We’ll keep on waiting for that day

And we will know
Our God is in control
Holy Holy Holy
Holy Holy Holy
Our God is in control
Holy Holy Holy
Our God is in control
Holy Holy Holy